Please join UFV president Dr. Mark Evered and the College of Arts as they welcome Robert R. (Bob) Fowler to UFV.

Fowler was the Foreign Policy Advisor to Prime Ministers Trudeau, Turner and Mulroney, Deputy Minister of National Defence, Canada’s longest serving Ambassador to the UN, Ambassador to Italy, and Personal Representative for Africa of PMs Chrétien, Martin and Harper. He retired from the Canadian Public Service in 2006.

In 2008, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, appointed Fowler to be his Special Envoy to Niger, with the rank of Under-Secretary-General.

While acquitting his UN mission, Fowler and his colleague, Louis Guay, were captured by al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb on Dec 14, 2008, and held hostage in the Sahara Desert until his release on Apr 21, 2009.

In 2011, Fowler was made an Officer of the Order of Canada "for his contributions as a public servant, diplomat and representative of Canada." In the same year he published his biographical account of his kidnapping ordeal: A Season in Hell: My 130 Days in the Sahara with al Qaeda.

Since his retirement Fowler has served as a Senior Fellow at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.

During the President’s Leadership lecture, Fowler will discuss the al Qaeda threats to the northern half of Africa and reflect on his time spent in captivity and implications for Canadian foreign policy.

Coies af Fowler's book: A Season in Hell available in the bookstore, Abbotsford campus.